Popular culture bombards us with examples of animals being humanized for all sorts of purposes,

ranging from education to entertainment to satire to propaganda. Walt Disney, for example, made us forget that Mickey is a mouse, and Donald a duck. George Orwell laid a cover of human societal ills over a population of livestock. Frans de Waal

I have been trying to point out that in our lives chance may have an astonishing influence and, if I may offer advice to the young laboratory worker, it would be this - never to neglect an extraordinary appearance or happening. Alexander Fleming

There are just hundreds of people that have inspired and influenced me in a number of different ways. First of all, you can't forget your parents and all they've done to help you to get here. Michael P. Anderson

Isn't it true that the fault of birth rests somewhat on the child? I believe it's we who led our parents on to bear us, and it's our unborn children who make our flesh itch. T. E. Lawrence

So the brother in black offers to these United States the source of courage that endures, and laughter. Zora Neale Hurston

I am neither left wing nor right wing. I am middle-of-the-bird. Pat Paulsen

But if you could make that mistake and press the send button and the entire world sees it forever. Gregg Easterbrook

Those of us who write spend our entire lives in an endless English class. Joss Whedon

I live in a world where there's magazines and blogs, and people feel like they are allowed to criticize me, and in the meanest way. Khloe Kardashian

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While it was occasionally done here or there, nobody else had a figurehead like Walt

doing it. Jack Warner wasn't on TV. Walt was the boss, but he had a real public profile and he used it to his advantage. And he became a household face. Leonard Maltin I am strongly pro-life, and have fought to protect the rights of the unborn my entire career. I will continue to fight for this cause because I value the sanctity of all human life. Rob Bishop I explain this not for publicity, nor seeking to win an argument of right or wrong, I explain so that the record is clear as to my thinking and motivations in bombing a government installation. Timothy McVeigh We'd play at the Ambassador's house for an invited group of dignitaries from the government that might have gone to school in America; to the U.S. Consulate that invites certain people that they're trying to target. Bob Livingston We decide based on how people look; we decide based on how people sound; we decide based on how people are dressed. We decide based on their passion. Frank Luntz I hav

Two years after drama school, I had a nervous breakdown: I heard voices, and the

voice I heard in my head was Martin Luther King's. David Harewood The house was big enough for my brother and me to have firecracker wars at one end and leave Mom and Dad undisturbed at the other. When firecrackers weren't available, we attacked each other with pennies and marbles and clumps of Crisco, which made brilliant greasy asterisks when you missed and hit the wall. John Dickerson I think you judge your career by the scripts that are being sent your way. Jeffrey Dean Morgan You alone are enough. Oprah Winfrey I'm not a car person. Three years after 'The Da Vinci Code' came out, I still had my old, rusted Volvo. And people are like, 'Why don't you have a Maserati?' It never occurred to me. It wasn't a priority for me. I just didn't care. Dan Brown Everybody in Hollywood has to beat the 'no' - and if you write code in Silicon Valley, or if you design cars in Detroit, if you manage hedge funds in Lower Manhattan, you al

No, I chose the name Jane Seymour because I was doing my first film, 'Ode

to Lovely War,' and one of the top agents in England spotted me dancing in the chorus. I was a singer and dancer in that movie with Maggie Smith, um, and he told me he couldn't sell me as Joyce Penelope Willomena Frankenburger. Jane Seymour Sundance was started as a mechanism for the discovery of new voices and new talent. Robert Redford The election of Senator Barack Obama brought jubilation across Africa, where millions celebrated him as 'one of their own.' George Ayittey We need to stop spending money we don't have. Paul Ryan Making love in the morning got me through morning sickness. I found I could be happy and throw up at the same time. Pamela Anderson Of all the means I know to lead men, the most effectual is a concealed mystery. Adam Weishaupt I have always said that often the religion you were born with becomes more important to you as you see the universality of truth. Ram Dass I'm not afraid to die. Vivien Leigh I enjoyed the promotion

I like to be very girly, with bows and ruffles on the red carpet. I

love pastel colours, especially blue. Me and my sister both because of our eyes look good in blues. Elle Fanning I have often noticed that after I had bestowed on the characters of my novels some treasured item of my past, it would pine away in the artificial world where I had so abruptly placed it. Vladimir Nabokov Look, I am not worried about Washington cutting too much spending too fast. I mean, the kinds of spending cuts we're talking about just right now are $100 billion out of a $3.7 trillion budget. Paul Ryan Touring is very grueling. It's very taxing on the body and living out of your suitcase, going from city to city, night after night. It's a tough job. Janet Jackson I'm on 'Two and a Half Men,' and I don't want to be on it. Please stop watching it, and filling your head with filth. Angus T. Jones The belief that all genuine education comes about through experience does not mean that all experiences are genuinely or equally educative

Art is built on the deepest themes of human meaning: good and evil, beauty and

ugliness, life and death, love and hate. No other story has incarnated those themes more than the story of Jesus. John Ortberg Acting is not a mystery. There's nothing that I know that other actors don't know. We all act, we're all actors, we all know the same thing. The only thing that separates us is experience. Vincent D'Onofrio Surely, it's one of terrorism's intended effects, to literally stun our morale, to blow up strength and will along with buildings, and the reaction is hard to counter. Caroline Knapp The Internet empowers individuals to play a more active role in the political process, as Obama's campaign has manifested. Al Gore Nixon's full term was one of the most successful in U.S. history, which is why he was re-elected by the largest plurality in the country's history. Conrad Black I know so many people who actually just watch television on their computers now and don't even really watch their TV anymore. Busy Phil

To arrive at a contradiction is to confess an error in one's thinking; to maintain

a contradiction is to abdicate one's mind and to evict oneself from the realm of reality. Ayn Rand We don't want privacy so much as privacy settings. Meghan Daum I was always curious about the anxiety a person would feel when you open your mouth and you have an accent. You could have a Ph.D. or be a lawyer, but as soon as you say something, you may be diminished in the eyes of someone else. Dinaw Mengestu One important lesson is this: It is okay to try and fail at something, but it isn't okay to not try. Parents need to encourage their kids, and it all starts in the home. Bill Rancic I see a really good tag on a building, a man passed out in the middle of the street, a couple hugging, a cop arresting a panhandler. I'm interested in how all these things are happening in one block. Barry McGee I like loud snare, and I like really treble-y guitars, and that's just never going to change. Kathleen Hanna Art is for healing ourselves, and everybody needs

If we are to perpetuate the state, we must not only produce citizens, but good

citizens - men and women of sound bodies, clear minds and clean souls. Arthur Capper Modern Orthodoxy has a highly positive attitude toward the State of Israel. Our Ultra-Orthodox brethren recognize only the Holy Land, but not the state. Norman Lamm I met a lot of great people in Saudi Arabia and I'd like to see them again. And I'd love to spend more time in the desert and in the mountains. I felt really at home there. Dave Eggers The trap for an actor is that you become too successful at what you're trying to do, and you can find yourself stuck there. Ben Affleck Plays are always about intense relationships, whether they're intense love relationships or family relationships or existential relationships. David Ives When you are 20, 40 looks really old. When I was nearing 30, that seemed like a major milestone. Catherine Zeta-Jones I'd like to meet a nice girl and leave all those 'hottest bachelor' lists behind. Jesse Metcalfe Only 10 per

I did a couple comedies to balance myself as an actor and balance how audiences

see Donnie Yen as an actor, and I would even say as a celebrity or icon, to some fans. I want to show that I'm not Terminator. Donnie Yen When I think of Sherlock Holmes, I think of a guy who can wander into the confusion of life and sort of pluck out answers at will. Graham Moore It's madness to hand in a script to a director, leave them alone, and for the director not to want the writer there with rehearsals and the shoot. Peter Morgan There are times when external circumstances can overwhelm us, and we do things we never thought. If you're not aware that this can happen, you can be seduced by evil. We need inoculations against our own potential for evil. We have to acknowledge it. Then we can change it. Philip Zimbardo My strength was in singing and songwriting, which was a new discovery for me when I was 18. And I decided if I pursued songwriting, which is what was closest to my heart, then there would be no competition. I would just live my life being mysel

You can catch me in whatever's funky, whatever's got that swag. If it's got that

swag, I'm putting it on. Desiigner You need to think outside the box. You need to think differently if you want to sustain what, for me, is my peak performance: the very best that I can achieve as an athlete every day. Tom Brady Putin has put Russia on a path to be a world power with global influence. Jack Keane You raise taxes during an economic crisis time, as we did in - back in the time of Herbert Hoover, you send the country into a depression. John McCain I'm always the underdog, but I don't mind that. Stipe Miocic The minute that a celebrity wears your clothing, that gives you international exposure and the best advertising you can get. Emilia Wickstead On the Republican Party platform and the major issues of the Republican Party, Charlie Dent is significantly removed from those foundational principles in his voting record. Trent Franks You get to a point in your life where you go, 'I don't remember what I did.' Frank Abagnale My id

Venezuelans have a deep democratic conviction. If the government hotheads ventured out to stir violence

they would encounter the armed forces. I don't believe the armed forces respond to a political party. Henrique Capriles Radonski I have long observed that the act of writing is viewed, by some, as an elite and otherworldly act, all the more so if a person isn't paid for what she writes. Joyce Maynard It wasn't until I could get out of Stanford that I could sit down and think about my life, to do the things that most kids do, which is to ask who am I, what do I want to be when I grow up. I never got to do Dan Pintauro. Danny Pintauro Now I'm giving up a little in the week-to-week tournaments but reaping the benefits in the majors. Lee Westwood In every community, whether large or small, there are people who lead in their community in easy and difficult times. Donna Shalala I write contemporary rock with Jane's. And I also write house music with people like Kascade. Perry Farrell Passion and standing up for things can help create a sense of unity. Bu